Easter Egg Hunters, a transformers/beast wars fanfic

"Okay soldiers! We're on a hunt today! A hunt that tests your tracking skills, your determination to rescue, and your undying loyalty!" Miko barked as she paced upon a platform high enough where every bot could see her at a reasonable level. "You will retrieve your eggs by dusk or you will be scrubbing every inch of the Nemesis both day and night until it is spotless and trust me, I'll be watching!"

Next to the platform, Megatron gave a confused but humorous look at his human friend, "Pushing it much? I'm cruel but I don't think even I'm that malicious."

Miko returned his comment with a wicked smirk, "Silence, King Con! Motivation is the key to success. After all, I learned from you, didn't I?"

"Now I might be regretting that."

Turning back to the Transformers lined up save for Megatron and Ratchet, who didn't want to partake, Miko held up a gun in the air. "Any question? No? Alright, on your mark! Get set! And…GOOD HUNTING!"

Her gun fired but she heard a startled roar beside her and realized what she had done. Its load had ricocheted off Megatron's helm with a clang, scaring the mech slightly by accident indicating she had pointed it too low. She gave him an apologetic smile in which he returned with a scowl and rubbed the area of his helm armor the bullet hit gently like he had been flicked. All the bots scattered nonetheless, ignoring the occurrence as they knew that type of gun couldn't do any real damage to a bot like Megatron anyway.

Some began to sniff the air trying to pinpoint their eggs' scent while others took off without any hesitation. Miko grinned at the scene before her, hopping onto the warlord's shoulder but peered at the sun to see where it rested. They had roughly one and a half hours. Perfect!

1:28:26

Knockout roamed the forest, ignoring how leaves and bugs constantly landed on his armor. He hated it, true enough, but that wasn't his top priority at the moment. Jumping on top of a fallen tree supported by two boulders, he scouted what he could see. He could sense his egg was near but he also could smell another's…below the tree where he stood.

Carefully he slid off the tree and peered beneath it in a patch of grass. There was someone's egg there, shining white with blue and red streaks. Smokescreen's. He didn't bother with alerting the race car as he caught scent of another. His egg! Running towards the origin of the scent, he noticed how stronger it became, almost intoxicating really.

Eventually, he came across the cluster of rocks with a bed of pebbles close to the middle. He gave a soft smile as he picked up the egg that lay there, red with silver and gold markings. He cradled the egg sweetly before running back to the grounded Nemesis.

In another area of the forest, Arcee and Bulkhead patrolled for their designated eggs. By coincidence, both of theirs seemed to be in the same direction. The femme was the first to catch on to where her egg lied. "Sorry Bulk, but I think this is where we split off. Good luck!"

"See ya, Cee," the Wrecker as he wandered still on the path they both originally were tracking.

Arcee raced to an open spot where a willow tree resided peacefully. Smiling, she ran to it and sniffed the air a bit to confirm it was there. Stalking around the trunk, she stood baffled that the scent ended here but the egg was nowhere in sight. Then a though hit her and she peered up into the crook of the tree where all the limbs met the trunk. Lying snuggly in between them all was her egg painted to represent her color scheme.

Sighing in relief, she grabbed it and headed back.

1:14:57

Bulkhead still scouted for his egg until he reached a part of the forest covered in flowers. He wasn't a floral expert so he knew practically none of the names of the different colored beautiful vegetation. Trying not to squish the plants, he carefully navigated his way through them until he saw his egg sleeping among pink and purple flowers.

He nearly didn't notice it since its coloring was like his own. It blended with the stems and grass almost perfectly. A blink and a miss if anything. He removed it slowly, trying not to ruin the plant life and grinned as he held it delicately in his servo. With a sigh of relief, he sat down only for his optics to widen once his actions sunk into his processor.

Across a lake nearby the Nemesis, Breakdown held a dark blue egg in his own servo but observed how it had yellow highlights instead of silver like his color scheme had which implied it may have been Dreadwing's.

He laughed as he activated his comm. link to the Seeker, "Hey Dreadwing, I think I found your egg!"

"That's interesting because I think I found yours by accident." Dreadwing replied in a monotone way.

Sarcastically, Breakdown shook his helm, "Wow, they confused our scents. Go figure because we SO look like one another!"

Within seconds, Dreadwing flew near Breakdown's position and landed holding the latter's egg. "Do you wish to trade?"

"What do you think will happen when we walk in holding each other's eggs instead of holding our correct ones? You want to see what happens?"

Groaning, Dreadwing shot the former Wrecker a raised brow, "Fine, but if we get in trouble and I have to scrub that ship from bow to stern, I won't talk to you for a week."

"I can deal with that."

1:01:40

Wheeljack gave a taunting laugh as he held up his egg in front of his commander's faceplates. "Look what I've got! Better hurry, Ultra. Time's a tickin' away!"

Ultra Magnus growled, "It is 'sir' to you still and do not mock me. Your egg just so happened to be in a visible place. Mine is around here somewhere, it is just well hidden. I can sense it around this cluster of trees."

The white mech leaned against a rock face giggling as he watched his superior dive in and out of the group of vegetation in confusion and frustration. In time, Wheeljack started to pity his commander when the semi-truck began looking downtrodden.

"Hey, sir?"

Ultra glanced over at the Wrecker with a frown, "What do you want?"

Wheeljack's face lifted into a smug grin as he unlatched his chest plates and brought out the commander's egg, "I believe this is what you're looking for?"

Briefly, all the silver coloring on the Magnus' faceplates drained pale, his optic twitched, and he grew furious. Seeing this, the smaller mech began to back away but ended up running when Ultra charged at him like a raging bull seeing red.

"Wheeljack! I'm going to tear you to pieces!" The Wrecker couldn't help but laugh at his commander losing his cool as he bolted through the forest like his life depended on it…which it maybe did.

0:53:12

Soundwave swayed his head from side to side, scanning the area for his egg. He had picked up several egg hotspots on the way towards his own but he knew none were it thus far. Since he couldn't use smell as a tactic of locating, he relied on sonar.

After a few minutes, the slender mech pinpointed a cave made of rocks embedded into the ground, blending into its environment mostly aside from the blackened opening. He used echolocation to see if there was anything inside. There was and it was shaped like an egg. Not missing his cue, he walked towards the entrance and leaned inward before igniting his visor for light. In a far corner of the small cave, an egg with dark purple coloring nearly invisible to the naked optic rested. He scanned it and sure enough, it was his egg.

Using his extensive appendages, he coiled them around his prize and brought cautiously back, careful not to drop it. His visor replaced the light with a smiling emoji as he turned back towards the Nemesis.

0:42:07

On the other side of the forest, Starscream circled above the trees seemingly trying to get a fix on his egg. He had been searching for an hour now and half that time he was more so monitoring others. It was useless to locate it via flying but it was worth a shot. Landing finally, he snarled at his predicament.

He wasn't going to lose and clean that stupid warship. Let a lowly Vehicon do that or those troublesome Wreckers. He ran aimlessly through the forest where he spotted the yellow and black scout, Bumblebee, holding up his new found egg in glee. He saw the mech wave at him before transforming to return to the surface-bound ship. Scrap! The runt found his!

Sniffing the air as best he could, he found nothing. Did someone take his!? It had to somewhere! It had to be…wait. A faint smell he recognized bloomed suddenly to his right. Not wanting to lose the scent, Starscream sprinted towards it eagerly. The stronger it became the closer he got. Unfortunately when the scent reached its peak, he could only lower his wings and pout when he noticed lots of bushes covered the area. What was worse was that his egg had his color scheme which meant it would blend in!

Countless bushes he searched leaving none untouched but none also seemed to hold his prize. Tiredly, he scouted the last three and all of them turned up empty. Giving a soft whine he headed back to the middle of the bush covered area and sat in defeat. He picked up a rock and shot it across the dirt floor angrily as he bowed his helm but the object made a clashing noise like rock on metal. Hesitantly, he peered to where the rock lied in front of a bush and brushed his claws into the same glob of vegetation.

His digits grazed something metal, something oval. Something in the shape of an egg! Laughing in relief, he grabbed it and saw his egg adorned with his colors. "Thank Primus! Oh, I never thought I'd be relieved to see you!"

Smirking, he jumped onto his pedes and sprinted, transforming seconds later to fly out of the forest.

0:31:28

Miko made a side glance at Megatron who stood leaning against part of his warship with his legs crossed. She gave him a few bewildered looks until she finally spoke, "You do know you have an egg out there for you, right?"

She saw Megatron freeze and give her a very rare expression of horror as he slowly turned his helm to look at her. He moaned, "I was supposed to hunt too!? Why didn't you tell me!?"

"I honestly thought you knew and was just letting time go by because you already figured out where it was. I-I just thought…"

"Miko! By Prim…you owe me big time, girl!" He roared as he immediately ran off into the wilderness.

The human simply shrugged with a concerned expression before doodling randomly on her sketch pad.

0:24:49

Smokescreen was having no luck locating his egg but to be fair, he did walk with Optimus most of the time keeping the Prime company. He should have listened to his superior when the latter informed him he lost an hour but no, he foolishly thought Optimus needed attention. The Autobot Leader was impressed how he stood by him for so long. Well, an hour and ten minutes had gone by when Optimus found his egg and it had been nearly twenty minutes since Smokescreen bothered to look for his.

Over every rock and bush he scouted, the scent of the egg being faint constantly. It almost taunted his recklessness and now he would have to clean the old warship for elderly Buckethead. Eh, not old enough as the warlord still could hold his army and his own simultaneously.

While he was running, he spotted Knockout sitting near the Nemesis cleaning and repainting his egg. Skidding to a halt, he bolted towards the red sports car. "Knockout! I can't find my egg! Have you seen mine?"

"You want me to help you cheat?" The mech replied slyly.

"W-well not exactly but I wouldn't mind a few pointers and I assume everyone else got their eggs?"

Knockout nodded and pointed to the east side while giving the younger mech a wink, "Well if I were you, I'd check in that direction. Maybe near a fallen tree?"

Smokescreen celebrated silently to himself, "Woo-hoo! Thank you so much Knockout, you have no idea how much this means to me!"

The Decepticon medic was right. The scent of his egg grew as he headed east. Eventually, he reached a fallen tree supported by two boulders with a patch of grass hidden underneath. Quickly, he peeked under and sure enough, there lied his egg. "Oh Knockout, I owe you so much!"

0:12:00

Megatron was panicking and he rarely ever did such a thing but time was not on his side. "Damn you, little brat!"

Oh Miko was going to get punished for this alright. If he lost, he was going to make sure she helped him clean every inch of his warship as well as ground her for at least two weeks if not more while she was on his ship. He had to admit though she often acted just like him. A human parallel, so to speak.

Thankfully, his sense of smell was stronger than most of his species. Why this was may have had to do with the fact that he was a miner once and navigating the dark labyrinth-like caverns relied on more than just sight and touch. He gave a satisfied smirk when he saw his egg resting on a rock column in plain sight. That was easy…too easy. He narrowed his optics as he approached it but before he could touch it, something hit him. He flew backwards destroying a few trees in the process.

When he came to seconds later, his breath hitched as he noticed Tigressa lingering just below the rock face with her jaws split open revealing all her hidden fangs usually not seen when she bared a normal mouth.

"Tigressa, I need that egg."

The tiger-dragon gave him a scary parody of his own signature toothy smile. "That's funny because I was told to stop you from getting this egg until the timer runs out," she hissed with both a male and female voice. He hated when she became like this.

Frowning, he unleashed his sword; she reared her spinal spikes in return. "I'm getting that egg one way or another, my dear."

"Come and get it, Gladiator," she roared as she rose to her full height.